The Weekly Dispatch No. 3:In Which We Are Victims of British Plumbing, Visit Dover and Brighton, Take Another Hike (with Predictable Results) and Watch NFL Football

While our accommodations here are quite comfortable, we have needed a few small repairs, which the university has been prompt to address, though not always with the results we expected. For example, a fuse that controls the hood fan and light above the stove/cooker had been removed, and we could not get it back into the socket, nor could we get the socket pushed back into place in the wall. When the electrician came and fixed this minor problem and flipped the switch, which turns on both the cooker and the hood, the kitchen was filled with the kind of roar that Midwesterners would take as a warning to head to the basement. Over the din, the electrician explained that all of the hood fans in university housing were altered so that they were always on and always on high. The reason, he went on, was that students who lived in university housing—and our house had been student housing, once, as evidenced by the deadbolt locks on every bedroom door—were not the most attentive, and they often set off the smoke alarms, which resulted in a visit from either a university representative or the local fire department. So now, whenever we cook a meal, we are forced to shout (I said, “Add the onions!”) or use arcane hand signals until we’re ready to eat. We are planning to take out the fuse again, though it will be a little trickier for us than for the last tenant because the electrician added a screw to the face plate to prevent any such removal. But I have tools…

The fan is a nuisance, but the repair to our boiler (a wall-mounted version of our much larger water heater at home) is still ongoing—in fact, there are two plumbers hard at it as I write this—and proved to be a more alarming problem. The saga began when we noticed that the boiler was leaking and that water was dripping onto the counter. A repairman came and spent a couple of hours getting that fixed. While he was working, I mentioned that the water in the shower was not very hot and that we had to move the lever as far as it would go, and even then, it was only warm at best. So, he went upstairs, did some adjusting and left.

It’s important at this point to note that our shower stall is about the same size as a British phone box, which means that you had better keep a firm grip on the soap, or you could find yourself wedged in an unbecoming and uncomfortable position, calling for help.

The next morning, expecting to enjoy a hot, lingering shower, Beth sealed herself into the glass cubicle and turned on the water. What I learned that morning is that the sound one makes when the water is too hot (a shriek) is easily distinguished from the one made when the water is too cold (more of a yelp), and that it is not easy—given the stall’s size—to avoid the water, whatever its temperature, and that the bi-fold doors—they open in and require you to move to one side—make escape nearly impossible. The fluctuation in temperature, it turns out, is the result of a problem with the boiler which was masked by someone who found that keeping the water warmish was better than scalding/freezing and adjusted the shower thermostat accordingly. Since the first day, we have learned a kind of contortionist’s dance that allows us to get into the water when it’s making the transition from hot to cold or vice-versa and out again before the transition is complete. It’s really a thing of beauty to watch but not really an audience kind of activity, so you’ll have to believe me.

The boiler is also the source of our heat—we have hot water radiator system in the house—and as the weather turns from the surprisingly sunny to the more typically English damp, we are hopeful that the inconsistency of the shower does not translate to a similar inconsistency in the warmth of the house. We should know more about both of these once the repairmen have finished.

Aside from that, we thank our proverbial lucky stars every day for this opportunity. The classes we are teaching are enjoyable—my English students are comfortably familiar in their classroom demeanor; Beth finds our American students to be bright and funny and excited to be here—and the interaction we have with both students and colleagues continues to be a delight to us both. We have also come to appreciate the field trips the university is providing.

This week, we traveled to Dover via motor coach in a downpour that did not abate the entire time we were there and, in fact, turned into a windy squall once we reached the coast. But not even soaked shoes, sodden jeans or inside-out umbrellas diminished the day for any of us.

We pulled up at the foot of a long hill, unloaded and then tramped up the hill to Dover Castle, built by Henry II, visited often by Henry VIII, and arguably the site of England’s most important military outpost from the Napoleonic Wars to World War II because it is where the distance between England and the continent is the shortest (28 miles).

We had about 90 minutes to explore the castle on our own before we were to meet up for a tour of the Secret Wartime Tunnels, a honeycomb built into the White Cliffs of Dover that served as barracks for about 3000 soldiers when Napoleon threatened to invade and then as headquarters and a hospital for the British armed forces in World War II. It was from this underground command center that the evacuation of Dunkirk was planned and carried out. It was also a place Winston Churchill liked to visit. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any photographs inside the tunnels (they are “secret,” after all), and we were warned not to touch anything because many of the artifacts housed there—everything from radio and telephone equipment to surgery supplies to cooking utensils—had recently been cleaned and treated and might, if brushed against, cause a rash…or worse! I’m not sure if there was any truth to the warning or not, but we were all very careful to avoid contact with anything.

We were also told that the tunnels are haunted and, in fact, two of our students said they had looked down one of the side tunnels and had seen a transparent bluish figure opening and going through a door at the far end. They saw the figure before the guide told us about the haunting, and neither knew the other had seen anything until after we got outside again. Strange, but true! There is a haunted tour near Halloween, and some of the students are talking about going back for that.

After the castle, we went into the centre of Dover and saw the oldest ocean-going boat ever found, dating back 3500 years to the Bronze Age. It was discovered during an exploratory dig in the city when a highway expansion was being started. One of the most interesting facts about the boat is that it was sewn rather than nailed together. There are plans to build a replica and, in the next two or three years, to sail it across the channel.

At the conclusion of the Dover trip, nine of our 13 students took off for France for the weekend. They boarded the ferry and ended up in Calais, where they spent the night in a hostel, and then went up the coast to Boulogne, where they spent Saturday and part of Sunday. They came home waterlogged—it had rained all day Saturday, too—but proud of themselves, I think, for having struck out on their own. They were all glad, they said, to get back to England which, already, has become their home.

Our Saturday took us to Brighton, a place I’ve wanted to visit since reading Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock as a student. We took the train and saw a great deal of beautiful countryside on the way and passed through towns we may visit as destinations in the next few weeks. After hopping off the train, we went down a San Francisco-esque hill toward the sea. Along the way, we stopped and toured the Royal Pavilion, easily the most outlandishly extravagant place I’ve ever seen.

The 35-year-long project of George IV, the place resembles an Indian palace on the outside but is decorated, in several rooms, in faux Chinese style. Again, we could not take photographs, but mental pictures will remain with me a very long time, particularly the formal banquet hall which features a one-ton chandelier suspended from a high domed ceiling in the talons of a silver dragon. This was one of those places where the audio guide we were given was worth a listen.

The rest of Brighton is seaside-tourist-tacky: exactly what I was hoping for. From the long pier with an amusement park at the end to the little stands that sell Brighton Rock—a souvenir candy—to the fortune-tellers and street performers, it is tawdry and a little dirty and really wonderful. We even saw the scariest-looking man either of us has ever seen. Beth said he probably has a poet’s soul, to which I answered, “Yeah, in a box in his apartment.” I wanted to take a picture of him, but I was afraid all of the piercings in his face would reflect too much of the flash. Plus, I was just afraid.

On Sunday, we took another heritage walk. This time we hiked two-and-a-half miles out of Canterbury—up and down a couple of steep hills—to Tyler Hill where we went into the woods and followed the “radfall” to Broad Oak Valley. A radfall, as we discovered is a Saxon earthwork comprising two berms with open space in-between. The radfall marked the boundaries of two estates and provided public space between where people could travel or—and this was the real reason for the radfall—chop down the trees, thus providing the landowners a pathway to get from place to place without having to clear it themselves.

As has become our custom, we reached the moment where, as Beth has come to recognize it, “confusion ensues.” This time, though, it was not so much our fault as the mapmakers. A kind woman in Wellies walking her deaf Whippet stopped to help us out, and she agreed that the landmarks we were given were not there. So, instead of locating the non-existent footbridge, we leaped a stream and entered Little Hall Woods, a truly idyllic spot, where we had lunch. Deciding that we were already off-map and that there was no point in trying to get back on-map, we climbed out of the valley and, using the Cathedral as our landmark, made our way safely home.

That night, we went to the Jolly Sailor pub and watched an NFL game. It was not, despite our hopes, the Chicago Bears, but we did get to see Brett Favre set the new touchdown pass record. British coverage is provided by Fox, but it is a single feed without the ability to cut to the studio for halftime recaps or to other games. There are no commercials, either, which is odd. Usually, during a timeout, the screen goes to a message announcing the game would resume in a moment. The first time, though, we got to listen to the two booth announcers talking with a producer about what they needed. At the same time, the sideline camera that was “live” was pointed by a clearly bored cameraman at his shoes, at the crowd, at the backsides of cheerleaders and, finally, at the field. I was hoping for more random shots as the game went on, but that was all we got.

Finally, on Thursday of this past week, we celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary. It was the most exotic locale for an anniversary since our third when we camped along the Mississippi and spent a day knocking over dead trees—a practice that has become a family tradition passed on to our children.

We did not indulge our woodland ritual this year, but we did have a nice dinner at a restaurant where, a week-and-a-half earlier, we had been the very first customers. As I had predicted to Beth on the way there, we were treated by the owner to a bottle of wine. So, true to my word to the owner, Olean: Whenever you’re in Canterbury, be sure to have dinner at Amantia. The food is great! And the service is outstanding!
Cheers!